"But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. It behooves you, therefore, to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government." Andrew Jackson

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Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Federal Domestic Abuse

Federal Domestic Abuse – the Political Ruin of 30,000
Montanans

And Confiscation of 350,000 Others’ Property Interests.

At least since 1998 and likely
sometime sooner, federal and tribal officials were coercing State leaders into
submission to surrender major protections of natural resources, property
rights, water rights, Constitutional and civil rights of Montanans. A 1998 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed
then by Chris Tweeten for the State, of 2011-2015 Water fame and notoriety, as
well as tribal and federal officials created the poison potion for the Flathead
Reservation property owners to consume.
With the recipe in place, the instructions for administering the
concoction were laid out by the CSKT Tribe in a 2001 Proposal for Negotiations. And
they were followed – to the letter over the next 17 years. Within these two
documents many years ago was the plan and path to minimize the voice and silence
those most directly impacted—property owners within the Flathead Reservation,
80% of whom are non-tribal citizens of the State.

Most of those directly harmed were
entirely unaware that from 1998 to 2011 the federal jackboot was being crafted
by numerous federal, state and tribal entities. A thirteen-year head start of
multiple agencies that withheld public information for this period of time,
certainly gave the feds, tribes and state profound leverage over a few
courageous citizens asking questions or voicing concerns.

It is 2015 now. Farmers, irrigators, landowners within the
Flathead Reservation have lost control or any voice over everything necessary
to produce life on their lands. The Tribe has 100% control of access to water.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs controls the operation and maintenance of the
irrigation districts. The federal government and tribe entirely control the
former Kerr dam, with no reporting requirements, and no scrutiny of its public
safety. The Bureau of Indian Affairs owns the Mission Valley Power Company that
provides electricity to all households and lands within the reservation, and is
operated by the tribe. Oh, and the tribe has no duty to non-tribal citizens or
to keep America safe. An unaccountable
federal monopoly now controls life on non-Indian lands in Western Montana.

The
Secretary of Interior has the last word on the Flathead Indian Reservation for
water, power and irrigation. Not the Governor, not the State. Farmers and
cattlemen fully know that life doesn’t happen on land without power and
irrigation. And it’s the feds and tribes that will now arbitrarily set all
rates for each—water and power, answering to no one, not the ratepayers or even
the State’s Public Services Commission (PSC). It is the CSKT that no longer contributes
to county and school district economic needs, so a substantial tax burden now
shifts to the landowners as well. Water rates will go up; irrigation rates will
go up; power rates will go up; taxes will go up. This final economic squeeze is a foregone
conclusion—it is a dead certainty. The
only things going down will be business income, household income, and land
values. All of this is against the law. In the mid-80s a mission of the CSKT
was to remove all non-Indians (approximately 30,000) from the reservation by
2030 “by any means necessary.” The stage is surely set.

Throughout this seventeen year period, during
which landowners have been slowly bullied, demeaned and silenced, the State of
Montana has made no effort, whatsoever, to protect its citizens and their
collective right to own and enjoy the state’s natural (water) resources, for
which the state is held legally responsible as a fiduciary under the public
trust doctrine. Few attorneys, if any, have lifted a finger to assist the
property owners. Public meetings were mere theater, feigned to pretend that any
citizen voice mattered. The song sheets of the 1998 MOU and the 2001 CSKT
Settlement Negotiation Protocols have been followed to the tune without
missing a note or a beat.

Narrowly customized “help” was provided to the
Flathead Joint Board of Irrigators (FJBC), keeping conversations limited to
in-stream flows and not much else. Efforts by FJBC advisors have intentionally
kept chronic divisiveness and dysfunction within the FJBC Board. These nine
fine Board members all deeply believe in the FJBC, are landowners and
irrigators themselves, but pitted against each other could cause the collapse
of the FJBC. Apparently, the federal and
state governments’ objective have long been to facilitate the failure of the
FJBC so that the CSKT Water Compact can succeed. A well-functioning FJBC is a
direct obstacle to successful CSKT Water Compact implementation. The FJBC and everyone
must lose for the CSKT Water Compact to succeed. The plan set twenty years ago
has wrought great fear and pain to truly fine Montanans.

To be blunt, the Interior Department
and its Bureau of Indian Affairs now serve as pimps for federally recognized
tribes, including the CSKT, who willingly submit themselves before the
congressional and executive alters as “dependent” sovereigns to ensure rapid
expansion of their “sovereignty” and legal jurisdiction over non-tribal lands,
waters and persons; and the State of Montana is a willing and compliant
customer, leaving an additional $55 million in State taxpayer dollars on the
dresser. Indeed, while the State and Federal government lie comfortably
together behind closed doors, the citizens of Montana have publicly had their
dearly held private property rights pick-pocketed and transferred to others.

The State government has paid little
heed to the printed words within the Montana Constitution or within the four
corners of the federal Constitution, including the Tenth and Fourteenth
Amendments and the Bill of Rights. Abandoned by their guaranteed representative
government, good Montana people will be forced to move out and move on. The
seven or eight Montana tribes will stand to devour the remainder of the
physical State, as Montana’s governing institutions and structure increasingly
become puppetry to implement federal directives for even greater tribal
sovereignty and jurisdiction.

Want proof that this intentional
theft of property owners’ interests have not been entirely orchestrated and
maneuvered by the federal government and its operatives on the ground in
Montana? One small group of citizens
engaged legal counsel to get their voices heard by the courts and federal
agencies, and to claim their rightful due process, equal protection and
property rights. And these folks are now painted as Enemy Number One. How dare
a few property owners seek to protect their interests and their livelihoods? Those
unable or unwilling to support these landowners remind me of the beaten wife
contacted by domestic abuse counseling services that offer to help, but she
sees them as bringing more trouble to her door, until she’s found dead in her
home.

Governor
Bullock, and Attorney General Fox:
Should Flathead Reservation land and water owners just lie down and
drink the poison? How does that comport with your Oaths of Office? Who would
have thought Montana, of all states, would succumb to such federal domestic
abuse of the State, and then conspire with the federal government to deny its
citizens’ State Constitutional protections of private property, water rights,
and due process procedural rights?

Absent
support from the State of Montana or any current federal government entity, and
in spite of serious demeaning and intimidation, some courageous property owners
will eventually have their day in court.
And that is a good and necessary thing if property rights and due
process are to exist for citizens anywhere in Montana today or tomorrow.